A Night For The Living
by Heidi Ahlmen
Summary: A Christmas tale.
1. Chapter 1

Only to be archived at Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power and at Fanfiction.net All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Lara Croft, Tomn Raider etc. I am not making any money with this work of fiction.  
  
Notes: This story was written on Christmas Eve some four years ago when I was travelling in Australia as a Christmas card for a friend back home. Please bear in mind during reading that the way Lara is portrayed here is not really how I see her, but a mere vessel for suitably Christmassy melodrama. I don't think she would make the choices she has made here.  
  
I personally love Christmas stories - they keep up a tradition on storytelling and in TR fic often pay homage to the classics of literature. Ryan Foley's "December Soul" and Sarah Crisman's "Lara Croft and The Surprise Visitor" probably had a heavy influence on how this little piece ended up.  
  
Enough has been said, I do hope you enjoy the ride :=)  
  
============================================== A Night For The Living by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==============================================  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Christmas Eve 2032  
  
"Madeline, sooo nice to see you!" "Welcome, darlings! Let me take your coats..."  
  
Chrissie Granger stood in the kitchen doorway, flashing a somewhat forced smile to her new family's relatives who'd come all the way for California. Unable to understand why any yankee would be willing to spend Christmas in the cold, rainy Surrey, she reluctantly waved her greeting to her stepmothers' sister, brother-in-law and their children.  
  
Chrissie had lived with the Grangers for almost half a year now. After leaving her grim life in London which she rarely wanted to think about she had settled down with this down-to-earth family quite well. Yet she felt like a stranger. Despite her sorrowful childhood she still loved her mother - whom she'd been taken away from. Chrissie knew her biological mother, a drug addict, was simply unable to cope with a teenager.  
  
But still it felt wrong trying to treat Madeline Granger as her mother.  
  
Holidays were always something Chrissie wanted to skip. She had never really celebrated much birthdays - except of those of her old London schoolfriends (rich bitches - Chrissie always stated, reluctant to write to them or talk to them on the phone) and Christmases had never been any different than other cold days in December for Chrissie and her mother.  
  
Shivering, Chrissie knew that if she had stayed there, she'd have turned to  
  
drugs for comfort and probably perished.  
  
She ought to feel so lucky.  
  
But one can't help one's memories from surfacing even once in awhile. When a holiday approached, Chrissie isolated herself, wanting secretly to ignore the whole thing. Madeleine and Rob - her stepfather and mother and Lewis - her stepbrother, tried so hard to make her excited about having traditional feast, knowing it was something she'd never had the chance to do.  
  
They meant good. It was Chrissie who always made everyone else sad - spoiled their holiday mood. That truly was how she felt - locking herself to her room and staring out across Southern England's rainy moors.  
  
Chrissie was awakened from her grim thoughts by Lewis, who took her hand.  
  
"Come on, let's go meet our cousins."  
  
Chrissie liked Lewis. Only one year younger than her, fifteen, Lewis had always somehow understood her and helped her to adjust to her new life. She  
  
followed him into the living room.  
  
Madeleine Granger was fussing around, dealing out cups of hot eggnogg.  
  
"There you are, Chrissie. And Lewis. Everyone, this is Christine Granger."  
  
Exaggeratedly understanding and sympathetic looks came from everywhere. Everyone knew she was the poor adopted kid. But being in the center of attention gave Chrissie a chance to  
  
take a good look at her new relatives. A woman in her early forties, perhaps, with her husband, three kids. Two of them probably her or Lewis' age.  
  
The woman aprroached Chrissie and shook her hand.  
  
"Hello, Chrissie. I'm Diane, and this is Paul. The girl hiding behind the Christmas tree," suddenly a face appeared behind the tree and grinned at Chrissie. She smiled back.  
  
"-is Susannah. She's nine. Here we have Nicky and Bradley, Nick and Brad."  
  
The two boys rose from their chairs and greeted Chrissie.  
  
"How about it if you kids go to Lewis' room and fill in with each other what's been happening for the past few years?" Madeleine suggested, carrying a tray full of biscuits.  
  
Chrissie didn't like being called a kid, but Madeleine did it in good heart, so she ignored it. Ushering little Susannah towards her room, she shot a look to Lewis.  
  
"Brad and Nicky, let's go." The boys smiled and the whole group went to Chrissie's room.  
  
"You won a surfing competition? Really?" gasped Lewis, and Nicky nodded.  
  
Chrissie sighed.  
  
"We're both in our school team," stated Brad, in a proud tone.  
  
"Really?" gasped Lewis again, obviously impressed with Californian life.  
  
Chrissie wasn't impressed. California this and California that. Lewis had been blinded by the boys' stories. After listening to their conversation for some minutes more, she felt she had to somehow prove living in the countryside of Britain was worth the effort.  
  
"You know, guys" Chrissie said, mocking Brad and Nicky's favorite word, "you California people may have big waves, sunshine and half-a-metre high ice-cream cones, but there's one thing you don't have."  
  
Brad crossed his arms to his chest, snorting in genuinely Californian disbelief.  
  
"And what's that, Chrissie?"  
  
"A haunted house."  
  
"A haunted house?" Nicky asked, somehow mockingly.  
  
"Yeah? Do you happen to know that ghosts are for kids. They don't exist." Brad remarked.  
  
Lewis remained silent. Not a good idea, this ghost business. He felt sorry he'd shared the story with Chrissie a few months earlier. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew about it, but the way Chrissie had blurted it out... sounded like a dare.  
  
"I'll prove it," Chrissie said, somehow feeling very confident. And somehow  
  
terrified.  
  
"And how are you going to do that?" asked Nicky and Brad in unison.  
  
"Meet me dressed and carrying flashlights at eleven p.m. in the verandah. Then you'll see", said Chrissie, trying to sound assuring, but realized she was gradually getting pretty nervous.  
  
Croft Manor, 1124 Eastbourne Road in Surrey, bathed in the cold, rainy weather and moonlight, as Chrissie, Lewis, Brad and Nicky made their way through the fields towards the manor.  
  
"Are you sure about this?" Lewis asked for what seemed the hundredth time since they'd left the safe haven of their home.  
  
"We can't possibly go back now." Chrissie shrugged as they arrived at the old, rusty gates.  
  
"So," Brad said conversationally, shaking a bit in the ripe wind, looking around, "what's the business with this place?"  
  
"This manor" Chrissie started, pulling open the gardener's gate, after breaking the rusty lock with a branch, "was owned by a lonely young woman surnamed Croft, I have no idea whatsoever what her first name was, who lived here all alone. She's supposed to be haunting here every night. The house, the manor, I mean, hasn't been used for decades. Even the caretaker hired by the owner, the great grandson of this Croft woman's butler, only comes here during daytime."  
  
Chrissie waved her hand in a polite gesture towards the now open small door  
  
in the right side of the huge gate, and everyone stepped in.  
  
The garden was overgrown, and the vines that had taken over the place took odd shapes in the moonlight, like demons screaming of ascension,  
  
making the landscape seem really ghostlike. An owl that had been chuckling in a nearby tree suddenly took off to flight, startling Lewis, who had been standing under a tree on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He didn't quite consider himself a ghost hunter.  
  
"Shit! What was that!?"  
  
"Just an owl," Chrissie said loudly trying to reassure herself as well.  
  
To her right was an old fountain, now growing green water plants. A rosebush nearby had conquered itself more space by suffocating some rhododenrons, reaching towards the black deepness of the fountain. The fountain was sclupted into the shape of a horse, with a wild look and flowing mane. Chrissie shivered. What kind of a woman had lived alone in this ghostly, oversized mansion so long ago? And why was she still told to wander here?  
  
They soon found themselves at the front door. Chrissie, Lewis, and the twins kept together, startled by every nightly sound.  
  
Lewis, feeling slightly braver inspected the lock. "Looks like some kind of an electrical system to open to door. Built in the late eighties, I'd say", he remarked. Lewis was a tech geek, a fact which Chrissie loved to tease him about.  
  
"Let's see if we can find a button to open the door."  
  
"It's in here," said Nicky, pointing at a nearby wall, with vine growing over a small, white plate.  
  
Together they pulled off the ivy vine and pressed the button. The front door opened, squeaking.  
  
"Why would someone who's rich enough to live in a mansion, not have tighter  
  
security? Anyone could just walk in."  
  
"Obviously someone who didn't feel they needed security systems to protect themselves and their life," Chrissie mused ominously as they entered the door, arriving in a wide main hall.  
  
They flicked on their flashlights and pointed them at various directions on  
  
the huge hall.  
  
Mold and moisture had done their deeds to the house. The main hall, framed by two huge staircases lined with reddish wall-to-wall carpets, was empty. The  
  
wind hovered outside.  
  
Brad, Nick and Lewis went straight forward, staying downstairs, but Chrissie walked bravely to the stairs. Lewis stopped at the bottom of the stairs.  
  
"You sure that's a good idea, Chrissie? The stairs could be rotten."  
  
"Don't you worry, Lewis," Chrissie said, trying to assure them both. She began walking up the right staircase.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Lara Croft, Tomn Raider etc. I am not making any money with this work of fiction.  
  
Notes: This story was written on Christmas Eve some four years ago when I was travelling in Australia as a Christmas card for a friend back home. Please bear in mind during reading that the way Lara is portrayed here is not really how I see her, but a mere vessel for suitably Christmassy melodrama. I don't think she would make the choices she has made here.  
  
I personally love Christmas stories - they keep up a tradition on storytelling and in TR fic often pay homage to the classics of literature. Ryan Foley's "December Soul" and Sarah Crisman's "Lara Croft and The Surprise Visitor" probably had a heavy influence on how this little piece ended up.  
  
Enough has been said, I do hope you enjoy the ride :=)  
  
============================================== A Night For The Living by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==============================================  
  
Chapter 2  
  
'What a sad house' Chrissie thought to herself as she wondered around in the second floor, in a bedroom. A huge bed, a fireplace, and a simple walk-in-clothes-closet. 'No furniture or stuff that would make it look like a home', she noted sadly and returned to the walkway outside the bedroom. The  
  
next room she found was a huge room with an old television, and stairs to a library. After fingering some buttons on the ancient-looking remote control, she walked towards the library stairs - and stopped.  
  
Someone had lit the fireplace in the library. And turned on a dim lighting.  
  
Probably the same someone who was now walking around in the library.  
  
Chrissie's heart started racing as she heard the silent footsteps on the old, wooden floor. Trying to keep cool, she walked a couple of stairs up to  
  
see the whole library room. Noone. But the fireplace and some lights were still on. Not that they gave much light, though.  
  
Chrissie walked into the library, marveling the sight of what seemed thousands of books. She wandered to a nearby table.  
  
"National Geography 1989. Archeology Weekly 1996. British Museum Yearbook of Archeology 1990. The God Seth - An Apprehensive Study of The Ancient Egyptians Evil God," Chrissie read the titles of the numerous magazines and  
  
books placed on the table.  
  
"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?"came a sudden question in a stern, sharp tone.  
  
Chrissie yelped, and dropped a book. She turned quickly, her pulse raising to dangerous heights.  
  
In the doorway leading to the television room, stood a woman dressed in a long, darkblue dress. She had long, brown hair, and she wore black, low-heeled shoes, cut very elegantly. She was dressed for a party, Chrissie  
  
noted.  
  
"You scared me," Chrissie said, still eyeing the strange woman.  
  
"My apologies", the woman said. "I do not take kindly to strangers."  
  
She had a very attractive face, with very clear characteristics. Dark brown hazes with an empty, yet a very stinging and cunning gaze in them. A slightly unfriendly face. The expression she wore was indifferent, detached.  
  
"What do you mean, 'your house'?" Chrissie asked, trying to raise her voice  
  
above a frightened whisper, without notable success.  
  
"This is my house. I live here. Who are you?"  
  
"I'm Chrissie, Christine Lucas - I mean Christine Granger."  
  
"Can't remember?" the woman asked, a smile playing on the surface of her tighly-pinned lips.  
  
"I'm adopted," Chrissie said simply. It wasn't a secret, but she'd always felt awkward explaining her life to strangers. But somehow it felt appropriate with this woman. Chrissie didn't, for some reason, want to be disrespected by this woman, she didn't want her to think Chrissie wasn't in her right mind.  
  
There was something about this woman that screamed out aristocracy, but still she had an edge to her that didn't quite fit the big picture.  
  
"I see. What are you looking for in here, Christine Granger?"  
  
"I'm here with my friends," Chrissie said, feeling a bit more confident. This peculiar woman had to be the caretaker. "We had heard that this place might be haunted."  
  
"Maybe, maybe not," the woman said, smiling strangely. She walked to stand next to the table and picked up the book Chrissie had dropped. The blew off the dust, and somehow the dust and the spider webs seemed to disappear into thin air after leaving the book cover.  
  
"What's your name? Are you the caretaker?" Chrissie asked.  
  
"The caretaker?" the woman looked puzzled.  
  
"The great-grandson of a butler that worked here owns the manor. Didn't you  
  
know?"  
  
"Winston? This is my house," the woman murmured, more to the walls than to Chrissie.  
  
"This can't be your house. Who are you?" Chrissie asked a bit rudely, before remembering that she was an intruder as well.  
  
"My name is Lara."  
  
"Nice to meet you... Lara. Lara who?"  
  
The woman walked toward the fireplace, and then she went to turn off the dim lamp on the other side of the library. Before doing that the woman gazed out of the window to the storm outside and in the dim lamp's light Chrissie saw  
  
that the woman was slightly transparent. She gasped silently and swallowed.  
  
"Lara Croft."  
  
Lewis and his gang had found nothing strange. Just some ancient ham, leftovers of a nineteen nineties meal, and an old gym with a swimming pool.  
  
Finished with downstairs, they followed Chrissie's footprints on the dust. They led the boys into the television room. And into the library, where they found Chrissie.  
  
She looked horrified, and tried to wave at Lewis to stay away, but the boys  
  
came in anyway. They all gasped when they saw the woman standing beside the  
  
window. The lamp had been switched off so they couldn't see more than a woman's shape.  
  
"Lewis, Brad and Nicky, meet... " Chrissie began with widened eyes as the woman in the dark blue dress walked up to them, "Lara Croft."  
  
Lewis swallowed as he recognized the name. So did Brad. And Nicky. They decided to take a runner but Chrissie intervened by grabbing the hoods of their raincoats and pulled them back.  
  
Lara Croft waited patiently.  
  
Brad knelt down, feeling fainty. Nicky looked pale as he sat to the table, accompanied by Lewis. Chrissie stood nearby.  
  
"Listen, Chrissie, we gotta get out of here", Lewis said, panicky.  
  
"No, we don't. See. She's harmless."  
  
The ghost seemed to dislike her words. It pointed at the lamp again. And another lamp. Soon the whole library was lit.  
  
And so was the transparent woman. She stood her hands spread in the middle of the room, smiling apologetically.  
  
Smiling and being transparent.  
  
Nicky, Brad and Lewis tried to calm down with only marginal success, still uneasy at the thought of being accompanied by what apparently was a genuine ghost.  
  
Chrissie walked up to the Croft ghost, moving her hand through her body.  
  
"Ow. Watch where you are poking, young lady", Lara Croft said, shifting away.  
  
"You're a real ghost", Lewis said, making all the boys' thought materialise.  
  
Lara Croft looked sad.  
  
"So are things, my boy."  
  
"Are you the woman who lived here ages ago?" asked Brad.  
  
"I still live here."  
  
"That's some way to put it," pointed Nicky, not so afraid anymore. At least not horrified.  
  
The ghost walked silently to the steps leading down to the television room,  
  
waving at the teenagers to follow her.  
  
As she walked out of the television room to the walkway, all the lamps and chandeliers lit, and the dust on the stairs seemed to disappear.  
  
Chrissie and the boys followed her through the tv room into the bedroom. The ghost walked up to the walk-in-clothes-closet and took something out. It was a crossbow.  
  
"Wow!" Nicky gasped.  
  
"Was...Is that yours?" Asked Lewis, astonished.  
  
Lara Croft nodded proudly. She opened the closet door wide open, revealing an enormous collection of weapons, ranging from pistols to rocket launchers  
  
and harpoons.  
  
"Incredible," the boys muttered.  
  
"So much for security systems," pointed Chrissie, a bit amazed herself. "Are these all really yours?" she asked.  
  
Lara Croft nodded, a witty smile passing her lips.  
  
"Who are you?" asked Lewis, jokingly.  
  
In the meanwhile Chrissie had noticed the boys' intense looks at the ghost.  
  
Theexpensive-looking blue dress revealed the dead woman's shape in a very sensual way. She had undoubtedly had an incredibly athletic body, yet with distinctively feminine curves. Results of heavy work-out and good genes. Probably the achievement of the ninety nineties health riots.  
  
The ghost had heard Brad's question, and as an answer she reached under the  
  
big bed and pulled out a photo album. She opened a page and showed the group a newspaper article from The Times.  
  
"Archeological Wonder: The Dagger Of Xian Discovered  
  
Famed archeologist Lara Croft of Britain, shook the archeological community  
  
last week by announcing her latest discovery: the Dagger Of Xian. A famed artefact of the Chinese mythology, the dagger has been said to give its wielder the shape and powers of a dragon...."  
  
Below the text was a picture of a young, smiling woman, dressed in shorts and a sky blue top, holding a pair of pistols and a decorative dagger. The text below the picture read: "Archeological Prodigy, adventurer Lara Croft, daughter of a British Lord Henshingly Croft, has succeeded again in bringing the truth behind ancient myths into the light."  
  
"You were an archeologist?" asked Chrissie, looking at Lara Croft.  
  
She nodded.  
  
"You must've been rich as hell, I mean, living in here... Awesome life you had. Must've been." Nicky wondered aloud.  
  
The ghost of Lara Croft looked sad.  
  
"I will show you", she said, closing the scrapbook. She lead the teenagers downstairs, into the gym.  
  
As she walked into the room, every chandelier, every light was again switched on.  
  
It was like magic. All the rust, mold and ugliness disappeared.  
  
And suddenly the woman disappeared, too. Chrissie looked around but she was  
  
nowhere to be seen.  
  
And suddenly she appeared, near the ceiling, hanging from a horizontal metal bar, dressed in a tight black leather catsuit.  
  
She lifted herself on top of the bar, and shifted down, raising her chin above the bar, doing the movements with just one hand.  
  
"That's incredible," Brad whispered, watching in amazement.  
  
The ghost then started going through a complicated series of gymnastic moves, hanging from the bar. Then she simply let go, doing a somersault in the air before landing on her feet right in front of Chrissie and the boys.  
  
"Pretty good job", said Brad, unable to tear his eyes from the ghost in a catsuit.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Lara Croft then gracefully walked into the pool room and dived in. In a second her tight catsuit had changed into a sporty black swimming suit. She took a couple of  
  
short dives, and surfaced.  
  
"What's the point of these mini-olympics?" Lewis asked as Lara Croft pulled  
  
herself up from the pool, suddenly dressed in the blue dress again.  
  
"You said I lived a wonderful life." The ghost said, challengingly.  
  
"Yes?" Asked Brad.  
  
"This is all wonderful, the house and my career, but what if.... Try to imagine..."  
  
"Imagine what?" Chrissie asked carefully, sensing the hint of profound sadness in Lara Croft's voice again, like a wisp of icy wind.  
  
"Imagine if this empty house and your work was everything you ever had."  
  
"You children are very lucky."  
  
"How?" Lewis asked.  
  
Chrissie, Lewis and their cousins were all seeted in the library again. Only the ghost of Lara Croft was wandering around restlessly, answering the teenagers' questions about the house and making up her own questions for them. Chrissie and the boys were very careful with their questions, they still felt uneasy about sitting around in the middle of the night with  
  
a ghost. A real ghost.  
  
"You all have loving families." Lara said sadly. Then she pointed at Chrissie. "You. You should try to forget and forgive the people in your past and find the spirit of Christmas for yourself."  
  
Chrissie didn't say anything.  
  
The ghost pointed at Lewis.  
  
"You. Don't ignore your parents' wishes. They want you to stay close to them. Don't leave them behind you just because their expectations are different from yours. That is the worst mistake you could possibly do."  
  
Lewis swallowed.  
  
"How do you know about Grayston?"  
  
Chrissie remembered. Lewis had wanted to move to Grayston and go to a special technical school. His parents had been furious at the thought of him leaving so young, saying that if he left without their consent, he wouldn't  
  
be a part of the family anymore.  
  
The ghost now pointed at the California brothers.  
  
"Shame on you two. What if your parents knew?"  
  
Chrissie and Lewis looked at each other. Then they looked at Lara, puzzled.  
  
"Bradley and Nicky are smoking pot."  
  
"How do you know all this stuff?! You're just a stupid ghost!" Brad yelled,  
  
angry, and waved his hand furiously through Lara.  
  
"We ghosts have our ways," she replied, sounding slightly edgy.  
  
"What are you - who are you to pick on us, anyway?"  
  
"I speak on the right given by the fact that I did my fair share of mistakes, and that is why I died. That is why I remain in this house."  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Lara Croft, Tomn Raider etc. I am not making any money with this work of fiction.  
  
Notes: This story was written on Christmas Eve some four years ago when I was travelling in Australia as a Christmas card for a friend back home. Please bear in mind during reading that the way Lara is portrayed here is not really how I see her, but a mere vessel for suitably Christmassy melodrama. I don't think she would make the choices she has made here.  
  
I personally love Christmas stories - they keep up a tradition on storytelling and in TR fic often pay homage to the classics of literature. Ryan Foley's "December Soul" and Sarah Crisman's "Lara Croft and The Surprise Visitor" probably had a heavy influence on how this little piece ended up.  
  
Enough has been said, I do hope you enjoy the ride :=)  
  
============================================== A Night For The Living by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==============================================  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Silently, Lara Croft lead the teenagers to the upper landing of the main hall staircase.Without a word, she raised her white, thin arms towards the ceiling, raising a cold, whispering wind.  
  
The wind blew out all the chandeliers and occupied the emptiness of the huge hall and the stairs.  
  
It was whispering, screaming silently, moving, flying, floating around. In the moving wind Chrissie, Lewis, Brad and Nicky could see twisted faces and  
  
they heard words.  
  
Lara lowered her hands and the stormy wind somehow fell down to the main hall floor several metres below the small group and turned to a raging grey mass, with an occasional begging hand raising from the spiritual storm.  
  
Lara blinked, raising her finger and stepping away.  
  
A pillar separated from the mass and started floating in midair. It took the shape of two persons: an elderly man and a young woman who looked like Lara Croft but only a lot younger. Their whispering turned into a conversation carried out by the transparent, floating, ghostly forms.  
  
"If you dare leave now, you can never return. Do you understand me?"  
  
"Clearly, Father!!" The young woman screamed, and then ran down a set of stairs forming from the greyish fog to a door also formed by the grey mass. Outside of the door the woman stopped, and a single tear, accompanied by other tears moments later, fell down her cheeks. Then the picture in the shadowy theater faded and melted into the grey sea of whispers down on the hall floor.  
  
Chrissie, frightened and puzzled, looked at the ghost Lara.  
  
"Lara Croft, age twenty-one." Lara explained, raising her hands again.  
  
The storm hovered and whispered. And from the mass deep down on the floor, another eerie scene formed.  
  
A familiar woman in her mid-twenties, in bed with a man. She was resting peacefully in his arms.  
  
"I love you, Lara."  
  
No answer to that. Instead the woman said:  
  
"I'm leaving for Indonesia tomorrow. I've arranged a flight for you back to  
  
New York for tomorrow."  
  
The man raised himself to a sitting position, staring at the woman.  
  
"Tomorrow? Tomorrow?! You said we could have a quiet weekend together, Lara."  
  
"I have to go. It's urgent. I've been waiting to be able to visit this dig for ages. You have to unders..."  
  
"You know what, Lara Croft? I am so tired of being your raggedy doll all the time. It's all about you. What about me? What about me wanting to be with you? Marry you, Lara Croft? You never even bothered to answer that!"  
  
"Well, if you want an answer, it's a definite no." the woman said with a rather cold tone.  
  
"You know what, Lara Croft. You begged for this. Prepare for a very official and urgent goodbye."  
  
"Vic, I never meant, I...."  
  
"Oh spare me while you still have some dignity left," the man retorted, grabbed his clothes and marched out, leaving the younger Lara Croft draped into the blankets, looking flushed.  
  
The figures melt down again.  
  
The scene gave its place to another.  
  
This time it was Lara alone. It was Christmas. She was slowly swallowing down a Christmas dinner in front of a small Christmas tree, with only one gift underneath. The shadow-Lara left the dinner - almost uneaten, and grabbed the present. She tore away the paper, and opened the box inside.  
  
Perfume. With a card from Hans Warsteiner, one of her long-time colleagues.  
  
Lara took the bottle upstairs to a closet, and left it there to accompany at least five bottles of the same perfume. All with a ribbon and a card signed by Hans.  
  
"Thank you, Hans." She muttered, and looked at the calendar. 24.12 2001.  
  
Shadow-Lara Croft slowly promenaded downstairs and went back to sit near the Christmas tree. Then she picked up a phone and dialled a number written in her phonebook.  
  
"Hello? I'm trying to reach Lord Henshingly, is he available? Who? I'm his daughter. Yes. Lara Croft. Oh. Thank you anyway. Merry Christmas," she whispered to the received, a single tear falling down her cheek as she put it down. Moments later she gave into a floow of tears.  
  
Crying violently, she walked to a small toilet and swallowed down a couple of valiums accompanied with water. On the toilet shelves could be seen an impressive collection of sedatives, bottles of valium, even a half-empty bottle of anti-depressants.  
  
The shadow-Lara Croft sighed heavily and Chrissie, still watching the ghostly scene up in the walkway, gazed at the ghost Lara, who had turned away from the teenagers. By the movements of her hand Chrissie guessed she was wiping off tears. 'I didn't know ghosts could cry', Chrissie thought.  
  
In the meanwhile, the shadow-Lara, still playing her ghostly scene, hovering in midair, had come out of the toilet, looking very tired yet confident.  
  
She walked to the library which was forming out of the greyish mass of whispers. She switched something on and soon the whole house was filled with silent music.  
  
Sad-toned piano music.  
  
The shadowy Lara walked downstairs, into a small room with glass cases. She  
  
kicked down a case, and among shards of glass picked up a knife that Chrissie thought looked vaguely like the dagger in the newspaper scrap.  
  
The shadow-Lara walked up the stairs again, stopping where the real-or-so ghost Lara stood, fusioning itself into her. They were one.  
  
With a single plunge the ghost of Lara Croft sunk the blade of the dagger right into her heart, falling down to the grey mass of whispers, eyes open,  
  
expression empty.  
  
In a matter of minutes the house was silent. No ghosts, no whispering sea of spirits, just dust and darkness. Chrissie, Lewis, Brad and Nicky looked at one another, incapable of uttering a word.  
  
They had all learned a lesson and in their hearts they now knew what to do about certains aspects of their lives.  
  
Reluctant to discuss what they had seen, they found their flashlight in the hall. In silent contemplation they made their way to the door, out of the garden, and eventually, to the Granger house.  
  
It was nearly dawn. Chrissie had spent the rest of the night lying awake in her bed. She had left a note next to Madeline's bed addressed to 'Mother'. Chrissie felt safe, for the first time of her life. Happy. But there was something that troubled her.  
  
She got out of bed and opened the window, gazing to the dark sky.  
  
"Where are you, Lara Croft?" she whispered.  
  
"Not far", came the answer from the opposite side of the room.  
  
Something told Chrissie the ghost of Lara Croft wasn't a ghost anymore. She no longer wore the blue dress. Instead she was clad in brown shorts and a white shirt. Her hair was in a plait, hiking boots laced tight. She no longer had a detached expression spread over a sadly pale face. Now she shone with youth, and her smile was genuine. She looked more like someone living than someone long gone.  
  
"I came to say goodbye. And a classical ghost's thankyou."  
  
"What do you mean?" asked Chrissie.  
  
"After making a difference in your life, I am free. You can tell the caretaker to move in and have a lovely time. It is a lovely house now. Not a house of bad dreams. Not a lonely one at all."  
  
"You're not lonely anymore?" Chrissie asked.  
  
Lara Croft shook her head, a gentle smile on her lips.  
  
Then she vanished, leaving Chrissie alone in the room, a whole new life awaiting for her.  
  
The end  
  
******************************  
  
Comments? Questions? Virtual kisses? Death threats?  
  
All will be dealt with accordingly :=)  
  
Heidi siirma6@surfeu.fi 


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